Disobeying Him

by M. K. Hale

  The boy nodded and made a sad noise. “Goldy the goldfish.”

  I knew what Allie was thinking when she sent me a distressed look. How was she supposed to feel comfortable enough to come forward and share with the group all the horrific things she had been through if their issues scaled from a dead fish to gaining ten pounds of the normal freshman fifteen? Most tortured people must not have wanted to talk about their issues and come to share their feelings.

  “Next, let’s talk to our newest members.” The group leader looked at Allie and me. “Please share your names and something that’s been bothering you.”

  Allie squeezed my hand, so I went first. “My name is Nate and I’m an alcoholic.” Allie hit me hard, but it was worth it to see her frown turn even a little bit upside down. “Sorry, that was a bad joke, I’m nervous. I do think I sometimes drink alcohol to escape, though. Um, something that has been bothering me, uh, I’ve been having problems with my father and money.” After my argument with him over the phone, my money had turned back up in my savings account. The credit cards still didn’t work, though.

  “And how does that make you feel?” The leader sounded like every stereotypical therapist in a movie.

  “Definitely not good,” I remarked, and Allie hit me again for sounding insulting.

  “And you are?”

  “Allie,” she answered in a low voice beside me, and I squeezed her hand again. “And I, um, I…” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been struggling in a class.” Something sank into my chest when she did not open up, but I also understood. It was the wrong environment.

  “Which class?”

  “Psychology, which is also my major, so it has kind of been freaking me out.”

  “And how does that make you feel?” she asked her the same question, like every problem was the same. I now understood why Allie disliked therapy. But not all therapy was as bad as this.

  “It makes me feel like if I can’t pull up my grades, maybe I don’t have what it takes to fulfill my dream.” Her words rang so full of emotion, I realized this problem was a real one, not one she made up on the spot. She was struggling with grades? I tutored people all the time; I could help her. Having trouble in classes during the first semester of college was normal. Everyone had an adjustment period.

  Once the group therapy session ended, Allie all but ran out of the room. Thankfully, my long legs gave me the ability to catch up with her before she left the building by herself.

  “Allie,” I yelled after her.

  She stopped her speed-walking until I made it to her side.

  “I’m sorry,” we said in unison and both cracked into a smile.

  “I didn’t think it would be…like that,” I commented and ran a hand through my hair. I had been trying to help her and instead I had shown her how she had gone through more trauma than the typical college student, making her feel more isolated and alone. “Not all therapy is like that, though. Our school might just be cheap.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t try to make it work, but I already know how to deal with things. I don’t need group therapy.”

  “How do you deal with things?” Maybe she could give me advice on handling the problems I had with my family.

  “I stop thinking,” she answered as if her statement was not impossible.

  “You’re a psychology major, you know people can’t just stop thinking.”

  “Have you ever done anything crazy that forces you to live in the moment and forget everything else?” The fire and animation in her eyes shook me.

  “No. I prefer being in—”

  “Control,” she finished my sentence. “I know. But that hasn’t exactly been working for you, has it?”

  I frowned at her, and she smiled, putting her hands on my face and pulling it down closer to hers. My heart stopped beating, my body pausing, waiting for her kiss. I had no strength in me to reject her. God, I had wanted that kiss so badly. But she made no move to press her lips against mine the way I had imagined her doing for months now.

  “So how about we try it my way?”

  “I’m not going skydiving,” I told her.

  She grinned at me. Damn, up close like this, her smiling, she was stunning. “Okay, scared-y cat, we’ll start slow.”

  “This is as close to climbing a mountain as we’re going to get while we’re in school.”

  “This is your idea of starting slow?” I adjusted the strap on my protective helmet as if re-doing the Velcro could save me in the end if I fell to my death.

  “Oh, relax. It’s just an indoor rock wall, and it’s not even that tall.” She pulled on her vest, which connected to the ceiling by wires. “It will be fun.”

  “Our ideas of fun are very different.”

  “Are you two ready?” The worker questioned us and led us to the base of the tall rock wall. “Even though you are wearing safety equipment, we always ask that you be careful. If you fall, let yourself fall, and don’t resist or jump off the wall. Safety rules include keeping all your equipment in the right position and trying your best!” His over-friendliness was off-putting to me when I relied on him to keep me safe.

  “Come on!” Allie pulled my arm until we were in front of the wall. She placed one hand on a red-colored rock ledge and grinned. “Let’s go.”

  I took a deep breath and stepped up onto it, reaching above me for the two blue rocks to pull my body up higher.

  As I stood off the ground, I thought back to how I would have never done this in my four years of college without having known her. This girl was a life tornado. Who knew I had been living in black and white Kansas until she had thrust me into colorful Oz?

  Allie slowed down her climbing until I caught up to her. She was already one fourth done. While climbing, the fake mountain wall seemed taller.

  “I would have thought someone with so many muscles would be a faster climber,” she said, her words thick with snark. Her snarkiness was one of the sexiest things about her.

  “Are you seriously challenging me right now?” I increased my pace and got closer to her level, but she was still up higher than me by about four rocks.

  “It seems that way, doesn’t it?” She climbed faster now. A flutter tickled the inside of my chest at the thought of proving myself to her.

  We both began finding rocks and pulling ourselves up at a quicker pace. I almost passed her at one point, but she sped back in front of me when I had trouble choosing which rock to step up on. The higher we climbed the wall, the fewer rock ledges there were until we started having to fight and beat each other to the next rock to continue our journey up. Her body now above mine, her magnificent backside filled my immediate line of vision. A big, big distraction. Climbing was hard with an erection. Literally.

  One of my feet slipped a bit, shifting my concentration to the rocks instead of her terrific ass. I mean damn, the curve of it—No. I was lucky she wore shorts and not her normal dresses, or I would have happily fallen to my death from such a distraction.

  “I see you.” I heard her, and my gaze lifted to see her face smirking down at me. She curled her head back, catching my ogling. “You sure that’s the best thing to be doing right now?”

  I focused on placing my hand over the rock she had just stepped off of. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “So you weren’t just staring at my ass like it was a juicy apple you wanted a bite of?”

  My jaw dropped at her bluntness, but I should have been used to her straightforwardness by now. I played along because she craved someone to play with her. Joke with her. I wanted to be that person more than I wanted to get off this damn rock wall. “Less like an apple, more like a pair of plump persimmons,” I referred to the juiciness of her ass.

  She was stunned for a moment, and I grinned at surprising Miss Constantly-Surprising. “Did—Did you just compare my butt to persimmons?”

  “Correct.”

  She laughed and continued climbing. “Only you could think of the most pretentious fru
it.”

  I followed her, not allowing more than a foot between us. “How are persimmons pretentious?”

  “The word persimmon makes me think of spoiled, rich people.” She stopped moving above me and looked down again. She did a terrible British accent. “’Ello, me mum says to eat a persimmon a day to keep the ole poor man away.” Her British accent lost power as it switched from English to Irish to Australian. “If I don’t eat a persimmon in the morning, my parents will only let me eat the non-brand name caviar.”

  “You are ridiculous.” I chuckled at her. “First off, never do an accent again. Second, why British? Do you also assume all British people are pretentious?”

  She paused in her climbing as she thought, then resumed. “I think the Queen is pretty cool. I like her corgis. They’re super cute.”

  “They are dogs.”

  “Are you a dog person or a cat person?” she asked. We looked to have about a fourth left of the wall to climb. She was still above me because there was no way to get around her when the rock ledges became so scarce. “I already know you’re not a person person.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, you know—” she cut off when her foot slipped, and she started to fall.

  I raised my right hand off a rock and caught her by her bottom. My grip supported her, but I almost had a heart attack when I realized the exact position of my hand. My fingers cupped the warm, plump cheeks of her ass as my hand bent back. The heel of my palm pressed between her legs; my thumb aligned with her swollen clit. Fuck.

  She let out a light moan and bucked her hips at the impact of where my hand was, grinding down on me. I wanted to take my hand away, but she still had not put her foot back on the rock.

  “Um, Allie?” My voice came out rough and husky as I fought off my stiffening erection while keeping my grip on her so she wouldn’t fall. She let out a light squeal as a response to my questioning her. “Um, could you put your foot back on one of the rocks?”

  She shivered but moved up, off of my hand, and pulled herself back into position. “Y-Yeah.”

  I wanted to bang my head against the wall to stop the steamy thoughts bombarding my mind. Repeat after me: she is with Ryan.

  Had the dampness between her legs come from the sweat of my palm or was she wet—Fuck. Fuck. Gah. How was I supposed to concentrate on climbing after that?

  I liked her. I liked her sense of humor, her fearlessness, and how I felt different around her. I got her. Ryan did not get her. He could never understand what she was and how she had become it. Plus, she had trusted me with it all. Me. There had to be a reason for that. She tried kissing me before, and on multiple occasions, she gazed at me with the same passionate heat I felt for her. She liked me too. But that could not matter.

  There were too many reasons for us not to be together. It was against the rules, she was dating Ryan, and we were too different. Why did it not matter to me? All of those things should matter. Why did I keep picturing us doing way more than kissing?

  Passing Allie’s room on my way to mine, I heard two voices coming through her door. They both sounded alarmed and a bit hectic, so I stopped and knocked. The other voice did not belong to her roommate; it was a low male one. Gavin? Ryan? Why the hell did no one come to the door after I knocked? Instead, the voices stopped as if they hoped I would go away.

  “Allie?” I asked through the door. I did not want to open it if she did not want me to. We had talked about barriers and us becoming friends before treating each other like RA and resident.

  I heard a muffled statement, which I assumed was “who was that?” I opened the door because Ryan and Gavin would never sound so angry with her.

  I stepped into the room and saw Allie standing behind her bed like she used it as a defense barrier. The guy glared at me, but I had never seen him before. His bright blond hair appeared almost white, and his body was one of an athlete.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he questioned me.

  I stood straighter as he took on an offensive stance. “I could ask you the same thing.” My remark seemed to bother him because he took another aggressive step toward me.

  “Logan, don’t!” I heard Allie say, and every muscle in my body tightened.

  “Logan?” I growled, anger dripping from my voice.

  All I saw was red.

  Chapter 16

  Allie:

  * * *

  After hearing a knock on my door around six o’clock, I had assumed it was Nate or Gavin. Opening my door only to see the boy, whom I had spent every minute of every day for a year trying not to think about, froze me to the bone. My lungs quit without handing in a two weeks’ notice when I saw Logan’s face. At first, I thought it was another nightmare but when he shot me a small smile, my stomach twisted into nauseous knots. He looked the same. Handsome, smug, and dangerous. Had my mother told him where I was? How did she even know my room number?

  “What did you do to your hair?” was the first thing he said to me. The last time I had seen him was when I testified at his trial, and yet those were his first words to me since the night he had almost killed me.

  “Dyed it.” He would have been used to seeing me with shorter hair. When we were together, I had it cut, so it was harder for him to grab and pull. “What are you doing here?” I asked in a calm voice. I did not know how his temper was anymore.

  “I had to see you.” He walked into my room as if he had every right to come into my personal space. He also surveyed every inch of it.

  “I still have the restraining order.”

  “I want you to get rid of it.” Logan plopped down on my bed and bounced twice before moving his gaze back to me. “Your room is small.”

  What was I supposed to say to that?

  “You should move back home.” He continued telling me things I did not want to hear. “You don’t need to be here.”

  “I like it here.” I became a bit more daring. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.”

  “I needed to talk to you.”

  “About what?” I inched to my desk where my cell phone sat. If I could just call someone—but who would know to come to check on me? They would just call me back and Logan would realize what I had done.

  Nate. Nate would know to come over.

  “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  A bitter laugh slipped out of me. “You’re sorry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You almost killed me,” I yelled. The constant anger bubbling beneath the surface came out with a vengeance. My anger triggered his. Fantastic.

  “You cheated on me. I loved you, and you cheated on me.” Logan standing with his hands clenched into fists and fire in his eyes used to scare me, but there was nothing left to fear. What more could he take from me? He had already taken my life.

  “I. Did. Not,” I said. The chill in my voice was enough to startle him. He had never heard me speak to him in such a way before. “That baby was yours and you fucking killed it.”

  He was silent. He stared at me with wide eyes and sat back down on my bed.

  “You’re not a part of my life anymore,” I said, trying to revive a calm exterior. “I want you to leave.”

  “We belong together. You calm me down—”

  “Get. Out.” Once the words came out of my mouth, there was a knock at my door, and Logan and I paused. I could not breathe.

  “Allie?” Nate’s voice cut through the door. Upon seeing Logan’s reaction, fear sliced into me, shattering my armor.

  “What guy is visiting you so late?” Logan asked me, and I again struggled with my words. “Are you dating someone? Who?”

  Nate opened the door and came in. He narrowed his eyes on Logan.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.” Nate’s tone held a challenge, and when Logan took on his I’m-going-to-hit-you stance, my blood turned cold, freezing into red ice in my veins.

  “Logan, don’t!”

  “Logan?�
�� Understanding flashed in Nate’s eyes, and rage overcame him. Everything happened in a blur.

  Nate ran at Logan and tackled him to the ground. Logan was strong but Nate seemed stronger. The first two punches were hard and fast into Logan’s jaw, and it disorientated him enough to prevent him from blocking the next hit, which broke his nose. Logan let out a loud bellow and rolled both of them around, resulting in Logan being on top. This did not bother Nate because he pushed his knee up between Logan’s legs, and, at that painful distraction, Nate escaped from underneath him. He shot back up while Logan knelt, holding his groin and glaring.

  “What the hell?”

  “You like hitting women but can’t take a man hitting you?” Nate asked.

  “Who is this guy, Allie?”

  My hero? I again was shocked silent. Seeing such fighting from Nate should have been scary, should have triggered old fears, but instead…. Damn, how was he so fucking sexy? He accomplished what I had always wanted.

  When Logan first started hurting me, all I wanted was my father or an imaginary big brother or a guy friend to stand up for me and protect me. My attempts at holding Logan back or getting violent with him always ended with one of my bones broken. I had never dreamt of being a princess, but Nate “saving” me was, well, hot. A steamy image of him in nothing but shiny knight armor flooded my mind.

  “Let me make one thing clear.” Nate pulled Logan’s head up, forcing him to meet his gaze. “You will not talk to Allie. You will not look at Allie. From now on, you never even knew her.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who can make you disappear. I don’t care how popular you are in your small town. I don’t care that you come from money. I come from more money than you will ever see in your lifetime. I care that you hurt her.” Nate’s face moved so close and threatening to Logan’s, I worried they might bite each other. “Don’t ever come near her or try to contact her again. If you do, I will break you. Do you understand?”

  “You don’t even—”